Daily Archives: 5/7/2009

EXERCISE
As of this week, I am doing the program outlined by LL Cool J’s Platinum Workout book (LLCJ) with a week of Red Carpet Ready (RCR) workouts while I’m away from my home and gym on a trip to see my sister. This will get me through the “Bronze” phase of the LLCJ program.

NUTRITION
I am going to keep calories close to maintenance this month at 1800-2000 calories per day. I’ve been off program with exercise for so long now that I’m confident that just adding the extra calorie burn back in while eating at the same level will cause me to drop fat and build some muscle back up without resorting to calorie restriction. The meals in the LLCJ book are calibrated for males, however, so I’m going to look at the New Rules of Lifting for Women and Muscle and Fitness Hers 12 Week Makeover meal plans for my recipes.

MAKEOVER
There are almost too many things I want to fix up around me, but I’m going to keep this realistic and choose my living room and patio as my makeover victims for this month.

The patio houses my weight bench and Powerblock weight set as well as some extra pairs of free weights, a small round outdoor dining table, lots of resin chairs, two wicker novelty chairs, and DH’s grill. It has no discernible style at all, and now that it’s getting warm again, I find it too stifling to work out in there.

Our living room has decent couches, but it’s a mess at the moment with one of the sofas commandeered as Yarn Central for my crafting hobby. We have a very tall wall in there thanks to the vaulted ceiling, so there is a lot of vertical space to fill up. Neither of us loves what we have going on up there now, and I really want to put up the set of four Chinese scrolls my sister brought back for us from Australia last year.